(upbeat music)
Hi folks,
- (Bob) I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- (Brad) Brad. I am a physical therapist.
- (Bob) Because we are the most famous physical
therapists on the internet.
- (Brad) kidding of course Bob.
- (Bob) We've got a little known secret today
why your lower back pain's not getting better.
We're gonna share it with you.
- (Brad) Excellent Bob, if one of those things
that after a number of years in the therapy
business is
(makes fist)
- (Bob) Yeah we know this.
We've seen this many times and also I'm not very
good at keeping a secret.
That's why I'm gonna share with people today
so,
By the way if you're new to our channel,
please take a second to subscribe to us.
We provide visuals on how to stay healthy, fit,
pain free, and we upload every day.
Also once again you're gonna want to go over
to our Facebook page Bob and Brad because
we are giving away five TENS units.
These things are great for reducing your pain,
especially chronic pain.
- (Brad) Right.
- (Bob) We are also giving away on YouTube;
I mean you can sign up for the contest
on YouTube.
It's under,
It's
Let's see
Giveaway TENS units.
That's the title of it.
It's
you know
we did it like a week ago.
(Brad) Sure.
(Bob) Scroll down. You'll find it.
Five of these we're giving away
This is a great
great deal
(Brad) Yeah
yeah that's a wonderful unit. I can't wait to
work more with them in the future.
(Bob) So I just had a patient this last week, Brad,
that this happened to and that's why it
reminded me that this is probably a good
video to do.
(Brad) Sure
(Bob) So, he came in,
I want,
Do you mind turning around Brad?
(Brad) Well of course not.
(Bob) okay your best side
(Brad) Yeah
(Bob) He came in. He was having pain
right here.
And you go okay he's having pain in his low back.
Well what I find really quite common actually
is the problem is right here and it sends
pain into the lower back.
Quite often if you're having low back problems
it actually goes into the
you know
upper buttock or buttock area.
(Brad) Right and sometimes down into the legs.
(Bob) Right.
You concur with this Brad?
(Brad) I concur.
It's called referral pain and it's
uh
you know everyone's pretty
cog-
aware of it.
(Bob) Yeah I mean a really bad example of this
is probably a heart attack.
You're having pain.
You know.
The damage is happening in your heart,
but where is the pain?
Up in your throat,
Down your arm,
could be in the,
the back
(Brad) Right.
(Bob) you know so..
(Brad) the source is the heart,
but it refers to different areas.
Same thing in the back.
(Bob) So what we,
you know
what
what I
that I often check you is sometimes
I just go and push along the back here
and it starts ow ow ow ow
and it hurts up in here.
And it actually doesn't hurt when I push down
here.
So that's one way to test, but there's
a lot of other tests.
We're not gonna...
that's not the purpose today.
The purpose today is to show you some of
the things to do for your mid back.
(Brad) Sure
(Bob) If you're having mid back pain.
So the first one is;
we like this one.
The ball and the chair Brad.
(Brad) ooohhh yeah.
(Bob) I'm gonna use this one right here.
(Brad) Bring a chair. I got a ball.
(Bob) We'll let Brad do the honors.
(brad) Yup.
So get a ball.
Like a six or eight inch ball
and its nice to have it if
its a little bit soft and squishy.
If it's really firm it doesn't work as well.
You know.
so go and take one from your child or
your little brother or you know
whatever it takes.
And you know
let the air out of it.
(laughs)
(Bob) The little kid down the street.
(Brad) Yeah,
but give it back of course.
There we go.
So you're gonna put it
and you'll know
'cause the heighth of
where you put the ball will
make a difference.
But it'll feel like...
oh that's the spot
and you'll stretch your back over that
ball.
Sometimes you'll get
it hurts a little bit more.
Bt it's a hurt so good pain.
And as you do more clearly improves
and you'll know you're on the spot
you may have to move up a little bit
and again you experiment
and you'll find out
and you'll say oh
and I've had this with patients many
times.
As a matter of fact last week.
You say oh it hurts a little bit.
It feels kind of good
and its getting better the more we
stretch.
That's when you want to continue
with it.
(Bob) Yeah I actually
I can tell you three examples this year
where I gave the person,
it was someone I knew,
and I wasn't really treating them formally
I just gave them that one exercise
and they got better.
(Brad) Sure.
(Bob) and that was just the one exercise
(Brad) yep yep
(Bob) but I gotta point this out
real quick again Brad.
You say heigth.
Is there anybody else that says heigth?
I say height.
height
(Brad) height
height
heigth
yeah I'm gonna study.
I'm gonna be an English major.
(Bob) no I'm not saying its wrong.
I just don't know
do other people say it that way?
but anyway
okay
We're moving on.
(Brad) We gotta get on with the program.
(bob) All right.
The next one is you can
actually just do a plain
stretch called a hallelujah stretch
over the back of the chair,
especially if you have a chair that
hits you about right.
Some of the chairs that hit you
a little bit
make you a little bit
below your shoulder blades.
(Brad) Yep.
(Bob) and you can just do some of these
without the ball.
I'm just trying to save if you steal the
ball from your little brother or sister
or little neighbor kid.
(brad) nephew, niece
the heigth of the chair
if its too high
if its up around the upper shoulder
or low neck
that's probably not going to work
(Brad) Yeah it makes it hard to do it.
it's really nice if you can kinda lean over
the back of the chair.
This ones a little borderline for me.
I'm tall.
so I'm kinda getting close
so it's still a problem so
all right, the next one
It's a source of great controversy all the
time.
(brad) oh yeah
(bob) You know what they call it.
Its called cat camel.
We call it.
We don't know which one's the cat,
which one's the camel.
And there's a yoga term for it too
which we always forget.
(brad) Right, yeah so we apologize but,
we're not too concerned about what you call it,
but as long as it's effective.
(bob) So we're trying to get some mobility in
the mid back and this actually does
loosen it up.
I've done this one myself sometimes
as you can see when I go down.
I hump the back up and I bring my head down
and then when I arch the back down,
I bring my head up.
So I'm just getting some mobility in there.
(Brad) Now Bob has got really range and motion.
particularly when he arches.
I've worked with a lot of people particularly
if they're older
(bob) yeah you might see him going like this.
They can't even get any motion hardly.
(brad) Right.
It's like a rock in there
and I don't have that kind of a motion.
My back does not extend,
but I can still do the exercise
to regain as much as you can.
(bob) and you can go ahead and do it
you know with all these
you can do a good set of ten
(brad) Right.
(bob) and you can do them
(Brad) yep
(Bob) quite often
(brad) Sure.
(bob) You can do them five times a day if
you like so,
where we at Brad?
We're now at supine trunk rotation.
So this is just one you can do when you
wake up in the morning before you get
out of bed.
(brad) oh supine
(bob) yeah the supine
You're just gonna rotate your legs back and forth.
There's a lot of rotation that occurs in the
thoracic spine.
(brad) yep
(Bob) and the mid back
So you can
and actually the more you bring your legs
up, the higher up the back it goes.
(Brad) Sure.
(Bob) and if you really want to stretch you
can actually try to bring the leg over like
this, but you can see I'm grabbing on here
so I don't go rolling off the bed.
(Brad) Right, so
(Bob) and you know if you do this
the floor, carpet, and floor
you don't have that potential to fall off
the bed because you're not on the bed.
(Brad) the bed yeah
so again keep your feet together close and
you can see Bob is rotating and then when he
goes this direction see this hip is coming
off the table, but his shoulders are flat on
the floor or the bed.
And that's gonna get that low
that mid back to stretch out in rotation
(Bob) you're getting low back too.
(Brad) right
(Bob) and it's getting
It's getting both
it's just I
its one I like
that you can do
in the bed before you wake up
(brad) sure
(bob) right when you wake up
before you wake up even.
I guess you can do it in your sleep.
(Brad) You can do it in your sleep I guess.
(Bob) Sure.
all right.
Next one, Brad, is standing extension with a belt.
(Brad) okay.
(bob) You can use a belt or you can use a
rolled up towel like this.
(Brad) Yup.
(Bob) and what's nice about this is you
can get it at different levels.
(Brad) Yup.
I may start here and extend back this way.
(Bob) Yeah,
show what you're doing with your arms Brad.
(Brad) So I'm grabbing the belt or the towel.
You're gonna push forward and kinda up at
the same time.
So I'm going up this way
trying to get taller and
you know it just feels good
opens up things and what I'm doing
I'm going up about an inch or so
every time you can see I'm wiggling
that towel roll and
you know
once you get up by your armpit area
as high as you can go
and its not as effective,
but you can start over.
I like to start low and just
work up and do a stretch
for second or two and each
level and if you find one
level that particularly feels
good, then continue to work
one that more repetitions
(bob) And what I would say
you know
you don't need to do all these
by any means
(brad) Right.
(Bob) if you find some are working
do those.
If you find one that works,
maybe just do that.
(Brad) Right.
(Bob) We're busy people.
We don't have time do do all these exercises.
(Brad) Sure.
(Bob) We're trying to give you a whole
smorgasboard so you can pick one of em.
(Brad) Right.
(Bob) All right.
The next one is..
What are we doing next?
Oh standing rotations with overpressure
(Brad) Aahh
(Bob) now you can do this with like a
boo yah stick.
You know where you can actually
you can actually put it behind your head like this
and you can rotate like this.
You can actually put it in front of you
and go like this and even push it a little
bit and give yourself a little
Don't push into a painful direction.
If I hurt going this way,
what I would actually do is work it
going this way for a while
and you
I mean you can do it with a golf club.
I do this with a golf club actually.
I mean really good posture when I do this.
Really good posture.
As good a posture as you can be in.
(Brad) The one thing you can do that makes it different
if you sit down and do it, it locks your pelvis
in and then actually it's a little more aggressive
on the back and so it may or may not be the thing
to do.
Like Bob said, you try one or try the other.
Do the one that you know offers you more relief
and more stretch.
(Bob) Yeah, don't go into a direction that's
painful. I mean gently if you do it.
And you can actually do this, Brad, with your
arms too.
(Brad) Sure.
(Bob) So, you know,
you put your fists into your palm like this
and you're gonna go like this.
And just give yourself a little extra push.
(Brad) Right.
(Bob) and it can mobilize into the one direction
and it feels good this way,
Go ahead and work that way.
If it doesn't, just work the opposite direction
(Brad) Sure.
(Bob) All right.
The last one we have, Brad, is
oh we want to strengthen your back.
We want to strengthen that mid back.
(Brad) Sure, Yep.
(Bob) So, you're gonna show the wall anchor
(Brad) Yeah.
(Bob) so this is the...
I've come up with a new name for it by the way,
Brad.
It's the work out wall anchor.
(Brad) Okay.
(Bob) WWA
you have to work out while anchor
(Brad) So you've got a nice band
and if you got the wall anchor
its easy just to connect it on there
and we're gonna work just some
scapular retraction.
And you can do it so your hands come back
into your armpit area.
(Bob) So he's squeezing his shoulder blades
together here and he's getting some great
strengthening for that mid back.
You can do it down here and this one...
That's why we like the wall anchor.
If nothing else,
if you know
we'll have it down below in our products.
Brad and I invented this and
you know if nothing else
for if you want to get one for posture.
It's just worth that, but of course you can
work all the muscle groups,
(Brad) But, you know there's three of them
its nice to put one up high because that
works a different muscle group.
It gets those lower traps
which is a really important muscle group.
But that's a really nice option to work with that.
(Bob) All right.
Very good.
I think we covered it all.
Thanks everybody for watching.
And make sure you subscribe if you haven't already.
(Brad) Right.
(Bob) We haven't begged you enough.